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Mage
:For related articles, see Category:Mages. The mage is a caster that specializes in burst damage and area of effect spells. His primary role in a group at lower levels is damage dealing and crowd control through the use of Polymorph, temporarily changing humanoids and beasts into harmless critters. At end-game levels, the role of the mage expands into utility, as many encounters in the game are difficult to finish without Counterspell, Remove Curse, and Spellsteal. The mages' utility spells also include conjuring food and drink and the ability to teleport to major cities and open portals for party members. In PvP combat, the mage deals ranged damage while using escape skills to avoid taking damage during combat. His primary stats are intellect, stamina, spell power, spell crit, spell hit rating and spell haste (the order of importance varies with the player's role). Background Mages, the most common of arcanists, are found all over Azeroth. They focus on magic that creates and that changes things, most often with the purpose of damaging their enemies and boosting the power of their allies.World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 59 Such beings can obtain a familiar, which is a normal animal that gains new powers and becomes a magical beast when summoned to service by a mage, while others choose to become focused mages.Alliance Player's Guide, 17 Mages also understand the workings of arcane energy so well that they can counter most magic with great effectiveness. An adept mage who has dedication to and natural predilection for one of the schools of specialization becomes more entrenched. At this point the mage chooses either evocation or transmutation as a preferred school, and casts spells from his chosen school. The mages of the Kirin Tor first mastered the arts of casting spells using the elements of ice and fire. Mages are also known for being able to summon elementals, usually water elementals, but can also summon air, earth and fire elementals as well.World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game, 59, 60 The greatest mortal mage ever to live is the naga queen Azshara, who still lives. In fact, she may no longer be mortal.Dark Factions, 34 The first known mages on Azeroth were elves, before the breaking of the Well of Eternity and the exile of the high elves, who lived on the shores of the Well of Eternity and wielded its powers. Origins '' manual.]] Early kaldorei civilization was defined by direct manipulation of magic drawn from the Well of Eternity to create and sustain their society. The constant use of the well attracted attention from Sargeras and the Burning Legion, and their coming resulted in a massive war known as the War of the Ancients. The war had grave consequences, for even though the combined might of Azeroth's mortal races were victorious, the continent of Kalimdor was shattered, and a swirling, raging miasma of sea storms flowed into the vacant area where the Well of Eternity used to reside. This Great Sundering caused the Well's waters to be permeated into the atmosphere and spread magic all over the world. This event convinced the majority of night elves to reject arcane magic and embrace Malfurion Stormrage's call for druidism. Many of the Highborne refused this lifestyle, and left in self-imposed exile to Lordaeron where they eventually founded their kingdom of Quel'Thalas and became the high elves. When their kingdom came under siege by the trolls of Zul'Aman the high elves agreed to teach one hundred humans the arts of magic in exchange for military aid from the human nation of Arathor. From these two races, the arcane arts have spread to various races all over Azeroth. Dalaran Once students of the Conjurers of Azeroth, this new order of mages had been forced to discover untapped magical forces to command in their war against the ruthless orcs. Although masters of their arts, the Conjurers who fell during the First War were unprepared for the rigors of warfare. Determined to avoid a similar fate, the mages began to undertake a regimen equally demanding on body and soul, thus dedicating themselves to the command of more aggressive and destructive magiks. Whether in their sanctum at the Violet Citadel in Dalaran or on the many battlefields of Lordaeron, the mages are resolute in their efforts to defend the people.''Warcraft II'' manual, 47 The most powerful mages of the Eastern Kingdoms were perhaps the Archmagi of Dalaran. The city was transported to Northrend when the mages believed they were in danger. It now hovers in the air over the Crystalsong forest and is ruled by the Kirin Tor. The Kirin Tor are quick to recognized fellow mages as allies where outsiders must do more to prove themselves. Notable mages * Aegwynn * Antonidas * Nielas Aran * Azshara * Erbag * Kel'Thuzad (Now a Lich) * Khadgar * Krasus * Medivh * Jaina Proudmoore * Rhonin * Illidan Stormrage * Kael'thas Sunstrider Races The mage class can be played by the following races: Weapons, Gear, and Armor :See also: Mage sets When first created, a mage is only able to wield staves and wands; one can later learn how to use daggers and one-handed swords from weapon masters in Stormwind, Darnassus and the Exodar for the Alliance, Undercity and Silvermoon for the Horde. Wands go in the ranged slot and have the autoshoot ability, and do not require any form of ammunition. A mage can only wear cloth armor. Magi typically should seek items that have spell power to help maximize damage. Intellect is a major stat that players should attempt to gear for, since mana is required for all spells. Spell hit and Spell crit are useful as players move towards the endgame. Spirit is also useful in endgame raiding for mages as it scales with intellect, giving more mana regen per point of spirit the higher the player's intellect is. Combine the unusually high amount of intellect an Arcane mage is likely to have, and the 100% of mana regen an Arcane mage can have (through talents, mage armor and glyphs). This will help greatly in endgame raiding for mana management. In addition, spirit scales with Molten Armor, providing additional crit rating per point of spirit. A reasonable amount of Stamina is also advised. Spells Mages have a wide variety of spells which fall in to three schools of magic: arcane, fire and frost. Fire and frost are elemental schools, and most spells in these schools do damage. Arcane is the school of pure mana energy, and while it has a few damage-dealing spells it does boast a large amount of utility spells. Fire spells are primarily damage-dealing spells, including direct single-target damage and area of effect (AoE) damage. With fire comes other side-effects such as damage over time, and for fire-specializing mages, stun, disorient and daze effects. Fire spells typically have a higher damage output potential than frost or arcane spells, and accordingly higher threat. Fire's stun, disorient and daze effects also typically have both a lower proc rate and duration than frost's snare as well, in order to balance the higher damage. Frost spells are primarily single-target and area of effect damage-dealing spells, but with more emphasis on chilling effects. Nearly every frost spell has a chill or freeze effect that fully or partially immobilizes an enemy. This includes freezing it in place (called a root) or slowing its movement speed (called a snare). Frost specialized mages can further improve these chilling effects and increase frost damage output to respectable levels. Frost spells help the mage use kiting as a combat tactic. Arcane spells are primarily utility spells, though there are several useful direct-damage arcane spells, including the very useful area of effect spell Arcane Explosion. Arcane spells allow the mage to remove curses, provide crowd control, absorb damage, teleport himself or others to major capital cities, Slow Fall, Counterspell, buff players' intellect stat, save mana for later use in the form of mana gems, conjure food and water for himself or others, and perform many other useful roles that give the mage class its perks. Of these three, as far as direct damage is concerned, fire is better suited to instances or group PvE, where the mage is more likely to have a tank in front of them and can simply focus on dealing damage without worrying as much about being hit. Frost is likely to be better for most other scenarios, including soloing and PvP, because although frost's damage is lower, its slowing and snare effects are the only thing a mage has to compensate for their lack of durability. The arcane school is situational, as there aren't as many direct damage arcane spells as there are fire or frost. The use of arcane spells can thus be mixed with either frost or fire. Arcane mages can spend less time drinking because of mana regeneration talents (arcane meditation) and efficiency talents (arcane concentration). High End Spells For those mages in the high end of their talent tree there are options. Frost mages get Summon Water Elemental which fights for the mage for 45 seconds, arcane mages get Slow which is quite effective in PvP, and fire mages get Dragon's Breath where a dragon's head will breathe fire and disorient the enemy. The arcane spell has no wait time for casting (for repeated slows to an enemy but not multiple enemies) and fire mages having a 20 second cooldown. The water elemental can mean the difference between life and death at the right time, but with a 3 minute cooldown (2.4 if talented), the mage needs to be discerning in casting. With the Wrath of the Lich King expansion a new spell at level 80 Mirror Image has been released. This spell makes 3 copies of the mage (totaling 4 mages) all able to cast spells like the original but have a reduced spell damage and armor. This number can be increased to 5 total mages with the . These cloned mages will only cast the Frostbolt spell, which can be a dead giveaway of who is who if your actual mage normally casts Fireball. Further, these cloned mages will often display health point values far lower than your actual mage which could be a further dead giveaway to a PVP enemy. Talents Mage talents are split into 3 categories which mirror their 3 main spell types. Descriptions of the roles of mages who specialize in each talent tree are shown in parentheses. Arcane The arcane tree contains several talents which, if spec'd properly, allow for just as much DPS as a "frostfire build" (see below) would, with greater potential mana regen; thus an arcane-heavy raiding build is one for a raiding mage with an eye out for mana-efficiency. Fire Fire has a focus on DPS and overall damage-increasing talents, in particular on critical strikes. Most of its talents serve the single purpose of increasing the power of fire spells, providing few (but effective) actual survival tools. This has historically made the fire tree the obvious choice for high-end raiders who seek to maximize damage output, but has taken a toll on PvP. With the advent of Arenas and Resilience, fire PvP has become unpopular due to the tree's reliance on critical strikes and lack of mobile spells (without a cast time). Frost Frost specializes in crowd control and snaring foes with its various chills, allowing for powerful kiting, and provides good AoE capability. It is the most mana-efficient spec. That efficiency coupled with the survival abilities derived from its chilling tools make it the most popular leveling and PvP tree. However, it is not as competitive as fire and arcane for producing DPS in instances. This lack of competitive DPS is most evident in 25 man, fully buffed raids. Notice that while all three kinds of talents already have been given names, different talent-builds invented by players have also been given names. For instance, a mage with talent-points spent both in fire and frost is usually called an "elemental mage" / "elementalist". A mage with such a build is also often aiming to specifically empower his/her Frostfire Bolt, becoming a "Frostfire Bolt mage" (FFB mage). Likewise, a mage with points both in fire and arcane is often referred to be a "three-minute mage" because this kind of mage often base(d) their damage on combining the fire-talent spell Pyroblast, which takes long time to cast yet provides powerful damage, with the arcane-talent-spells Presence of Mind and Arcane Power to create a instant-cast, long-ranged, high-damage spell. As the two arcane-spells both had a three minute cooldown, one would say the mage "functioned" (most likely in a humorous context) only every three minutes. However, since patch Patch 3.0.9 Arcane Power and Presence of Mind shares cooldown, which somewhat ruined the three-minute mage. Still, with the talent Arcane Flows which was introduced in Patch 3.0.2, the cooldown of both Arcane Power and Presence of Mind may be reduced to two minutes, changing the original Three-minute mage into a "Two-minute mage". Talent tree builders can be found at Official Blizzard site, Wowhead, ThottBot, WoW Vault, WorldofWar.se, Merciless. Many mages with a math background have studied the mathematical "best" talents and builds for different roles; theorycrafting as it is called. For more information on these details, see mage theorycraft. Endgame expectations In a group or raid environment, mages are usually tasked with ranged DPS, AoE, Counterspell, Spellsteal, Crowd Control and finally Ritual of Refreshment. With the introduction of patch 1.11, mages enjoyed a high degree of flexibility in the end game. Previous to patch 1.11, it was expected that most mages would spend at least 11 talent points in the arcane tree for Evocation, as it is a quite powerful mana-regenerative spell. It was given free without the use of talent points. New changes to all three trees also made investing points into both the fire and the frost trees much more viable. This still holds true with the release of Burning Crusade. It should be mentioned that a build predominantly using the fire tree will contribute greater DPS; those using a predominantly frost tree will contribute a fair amount of control. The endgame mage also acts as a utility class, providing drink, food, buffs and portals. When it comes to providing drink and food, mages are by some considered equal to "vending machines" due to their unique ability to create food and drink out of thin air and provide them with no cost except mana and time. Refreshments Tables may also be created at level 70 at the cost of two arcane powder. However, some mages feel that this is not their primary role and therefore refuse to give away merchandise free to people he or she doesn’t know. It is usually expected that the mage provides his party or raid with food and drink for free. PvP PvP-wise, mages are considered "glass cannons" - a design philosophy which gives mages generous burst damage at the cost of, generally, low health and armor values. Aided by talents such as Presence of Mind and Arcane Power, they are one of the classes with the potential for dealing out the greatest amount of damage in the shortest amount of time. In group PvP, mages will stay back and focus on crowd control with Polymorph and pick off targets from range. Depending on the Battleground and the situation, mages typically AoE to prevent node captures or nuke flag carriers as fast as possible. In solo PvP, a skilled frost mage is a formidable opponent, but the word "skilled," needs to be emphasized. Trivia *The Wrath of the Lich King faction of Dalaran, the Kirin Tor, start with a reputation standing with all other classes. Mages, however, are automatically with the Kirin Tor, making it possible to purchase and wear the Tabard of the Kirin Tor at level 1. *Dr. Bill Lee, a re-occurring character from the TV Series 'Stargate SG-1' and 'Stargate Atlantis,' states that he plays a mage, and makes multiple references to the game, including Elwynn Forest. While his character's race is not explicitly stated, it's assumed from that statement that he plays a human. See also *See List of mages for list of mages in lore. *See Mage theorycraft for numerical information on the popular different mage talent specializations *See Mage (Warcraft II) for unit statistics in Warcraft II *Spell power coefficients *Mage stamina gear list * The history of arcane magic in the Warcraft Universe *Mage's guide to tanking References External links ;Other sites: it:Mago pl:Mage Category:Mages Category:Core classes Category:WoW classes Category:World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game Category:Alliance Player's Guide Category:Dark Factions